One of the Ordnance Department’s timber cruisers located a grove of black walnut trees shading the farm home of a woman living in Missouri. She hated to sacrifice her trees, but listened to the appeal of patriotism and accepted an offer of $1,100 for them. Then, when the agent had left with her signed agreement in his pocket, she repented of her bargain and grieved so much at her forthcoming loss that the village minister suggested a remedy. He told her that the anticipated proceeds of the sale would pay for an automobile in which she could ride about the country and, amid the pleasant rural scenes, forget about the devastation soon to be staged in her own front yard. She acted on this suggestion, bought a car for $1,080, and in payment gave a note which she agreed to lift when the Government took the trees and paid her the money. The armistice intervened before the timber cutters appeared, and the Ordnance Department canceled the contract with the timber dealer. That left the woman with a half-used car, a note maturing in the bank to meet which she had no funds, and a clump of walnut trees for which the Government had no use. The St. Louis District Claims Board could not relieve her distress, but a member of the board brought the case to the attention of a meeting of war contractors; and it was arranged for the Missouri lady to keep both her automobile and her walnut trees. The New York District Claims Board settled for $275,000 the claim of the Wah Chang Trading Corporation, of China, which supplied a large amount of antimony used in making shrapnel bullets. In the New York district also there had been a contract with the Japan Paper Company to supply paper parachutes for carrying floating signal lights. The contract was not a large one; yet in its settlement it was disclosed that there were about 10,000 subcontractors--individual Japanese families working in their own homes in Japan. Under the circumstances the board waived the usual rule that with every prime contract claim must be filed statements of settlement certified by every subcontractor. Each of the district claims boards maintained in its quarters a progress chart which showed graphically each day the amount of industrial liquidation accomplished and the amount remaining to be done. In eleven of the districts this chart took the form of a thermometer, the rising mercury showing the amount of completed work. In the twelfth--at Cleveland--the chart was a representation of a bottle containing a celebrated beverage that does duty in these dry days for beer, and the task of the board was to empty this container.